Exploring the Cary Sheet

[Bernice]

Arabs:They were the richest and deepest bridge between Egypt Hermeticism and Western World through Sicily in Italy and Cordoba in Spain.
But they learned very much from Egypt.
They brought Alchemy to Europe from a purest Egypt source.

Eugim, did the Arabs preceeded the Greeks in Egypt? If so, then it is to Alchemy we should be looking for many of the first/original card meanings! But I am aware that other 'arts' were probably abroad at that time.
The egyptians are known to have absorbed other cultural beliefs into their own, so is it likely that their beliefs may have included some Hebrew. Or, when the Arabs were there, they would perhaps have come into contact with the Hebrews of that time (they were also arabs!) and had some knowledge of their system? An arabic/hebrew mixture(?).

Hermeticism = the Greek Hermes. So what exactly came into Sicily & Cordoba? Was it a mixture of arabic/egyptian alchemy plus greek understandings and interpretations?

Sorry for all the questions, I can't help wondering.
I have also thought that it is not the card-makers we should be looking at, it is those who would have commissioned the work, those who could afford it. Just how many rich nobles were there at that time....

The Cary-Star card: If the boy is definitely an angel, then it must be a hebrew one - at that date and time. So both alchemy and the The Tree of Life are depicted in the card....

Eight is a sacred number,the "work done"
Yes, "alchemic transmutation", the inner gold of the old alchemists.
The 'bodies' of man = "After all all of them are MATTER".
Yes, I would understand this, every level of existance has it's own substance/matter.

The Tower card as a 'Tree' apparently predates the Tower (building) image. I saw somewhere that the sun and brightness above the Tree is supposed to be the wrath of God being visited upon it. I remember that Malkuth could be likened to a *tree* - the manifest 10th sphere.

Now, what of the Vieville deck. If this were 'corrected', would you consider buying it? It's the closest to the Cary-sheet.

Bee.

 

[Rosanne]

Hi Bernice!
I love to see your enthusiasm!
I too am fascinated with the Cary-Yale sheet (as you have seen by pouring through this thread)
Several things I would like you to consider.
I believe that the Christian West learned about the Kabbalah after the writings of Mirandola- so late 1480's- of course Jewish mysticism was known from about the 10th Century- but not in a general way until the late 14th Century I think.
and secondly images of Aquarius are very similar to the Star card. I am sure in this thread there is a kneeling Aquarius shown. Here is a standing one.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Aquarius2.jpg/215px-Aquarius2.jpg
I do not think the Star is an angel.
~Rosanne

 

[Bernice]

Hello Rosanne!

As you may have gathered, I have small 'pockets' of knowledge only - and have been quizzing dear patient Eugim in an effort to join them together into one big rucksack. Not that I claim to have space in the brain for all of it!

Yes, I've been 'pouring' over this thread - it's exciting!
Mirandola ... late 1480's: Who is this? Must go search.

So, if the boy in the Star card might not be an angel - a sky-being? Or have you some other idea? (ones' 'inner star' - higher consciousness?).

Wonderful thread, am so pleased to have met Eugim and you..

Bee

Oh my, Mirandola was something of a prodigy wasn't he. This was a quick search so this is only a first impression; He appears to have drawn several doctrines/teachings together under a humanitarian theme.

 

[kwaw]

I do not have access to the dictionary, but would suggest that 'Bateleur' is likely 'Bâteleur' = 'Basteleur'.

bastel, s.m., goblet d'escamoteur (conjurors cup)
basteler, v.n., faire le bateleur || perdre son temps en vaines experiences.
bastelerie, s.f., farce de bateleur.
bateler, v.a., transporter eu bateau.
bateleur, s.m., sonneur de cloches.|| batelier

Bateleur connects with the conjurors stick (bearer of the baton); and basteleur plays on the conjurors cup?

 

[kwaw]

Quote:
“…It can be assumed that one Thomas Brandon, whose name reoccurs often in the records (a seventeen year period from 1520-1537) as the joculator regis of King Henry VIII, did practice the magical arts as a description of one of his feats is described in The Discoverie of Witchcraft. William Vincent, alias Hocus Pocus of London, is clearly defined as a magician in the Public Record Office, Signet Office Doquet books, SO 3/6, which states that he was given a license from 1619-1620 and again in 1627 “to exercise the art of Legerdemaine in any Townes within the Realme of England and Ireland during his Majesties pleasure.” Two others clearly specified as magicians, from the annals are Henry Miller and William Denny who were entered as sleight-of-hand artists. The Denny entry states that he “uses slight of hand usually called Iuglinge”, which clearly demonstrates that magicians were also known as jugglers during the time period.

Here Hocus lies with his tricks and his knocks,
Whom death hath made sure as his Juglers Box:
Who many hath cozen'd by his leiger-demain,
Is presto convey'd and here underlain:
Thus Hocus he's here, and here he is not,
While death plaid the Hocus, and brought him toth pot.

Epitaph of William Vincent aka the Juggler Hocus Pocus.

From Magic on the Early English Stage by Philip Butterworth p.23

Parts of which are available as preview on googlebooks, including the introduction and parts of chapter 1 which deals with, among other things, the period terms for conjuror and conjuring, the most common being Juggler and Juggling:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...859-1&sig=m3bYTjCNATsGfwcj2ofdwj6rWXM#PPA2,M1

 

[kwaw]

THE. You, Mister Prudenzio, are too prudent; let us leave, I beg you, these discourses in grammar, and take count [of the fact] that this reasoning of ours is a dialogue: for four persons as we may be, we shall be two in functioning, namely, to propose and to reply, to reason and to listen. Or to make a start and to report the business from its beginning, come 0 Muses, and inspire me. I am not talking to you who speak in puffcd up and haughty verse in Helicon, [12. A mountain In southern Greece, regarded as the home of the Muses.] for I doubt that you might not pity me in the end, when after having made such a long and tiresome pilgrimage, traversed such perilous seas, tasted such tough customs, there comes the need to go barefoot and one soon returns home naked, because there is no fish for the Lom- bards. [13. A play on the word Lombardi which also could mean crayfish. The meaning of the phrase is that nothing is to be gained.] I allow that you are not only strangers, but are also of that race of which a poet said:

There was never a Greek clean of malice.
[14. The quote is a Brunian fusion or confusion of two lines in the Morgante of the Rcnaissance poet, Luigi Puld (1432-84).]

Moreover, I cannot fall in love with something which I do not see. Others, others are those who have captivated my soul. To you others do I address myself, you gracious, gentle, soft, tender, young, beautiful, delicate beings, blond tresses, white cheeks, rosy faces, delicious lips, divine eyes, breasts of enamel, hearts of diamond; with your help so many thoughts I put together in my mind, so many affections I collect in my soul, so many passions I generate in my life, so many tears I shed from my eyes, so many sighs I emit from my chest, and so many flames I spark from my heart; to you O Muses of England I address myself, inspire me, help me, scold me, enkindle me, prompt me, make me flow, and turn me into sweet juiccs, and make me resemble not a small, delicate, formal, short, succinct epigram, but an ample and copious vein of long prose, flowing grand and bubbling; and let my currents go forth not as from a narrow pen, but as from a wide canal. And you, my Mnemosine [goddess of memory], hidden under thirty seals, and closeted inside the gloomy prisons of the shadows of ideas, sing a little in my cars.

Giordano Bruno
THE ASH WEDNESDAY SUPPER
LA CENA DE LE CENERI
Translated with an Introduction and Notes

by
STANLEY L. JAKI
Italics Jaki's notes. Bold my emphasis

Other examples of play on words can be found in heraldry, where choice of unusual animals is frequently based upon a play on the family name rather than on animal symbolism.

For example we have the canting arms of the families Gambara (Venice), Gambari (Tirol), Gambarelli (Rimini), Gambari (Bologna), Gambarini (Forli) and Gambera (Monferrato) with crawfish (gambero=crawfish) in their arms. Another example is Nicolas of Cusa, family name Krebs (= crawfish).

Kwaw
ref:
http://www.heraldica.org/topics/fish.htm

 

[kwaw]

For example we have the canting arms of the families Gambara (Venice), Gambari (Tirol), Gambarelli (Rimini), Gambari (Bologna), Gambarini (Forli) and Gambera (Monferrato) with crawfish (gambero=crawfish) in their arms. Another example is Nicolas of Cusa, family name Krebs (= crawfish).

See for example pictures of Cusa family arms here:

http://www.dr-bernhard-peter.de/Heraldik/Galerien/galerie628.htm

 

[kwaw]

Yes, I find these details interesting too
The Cary Sheet is really full of surprises.

I have searched some more in XV century Italian art, and I have found a few images that seem to match our mysterious sleeves.
From left to right, they represent:
1. A fresco by Piero della Francesa in Arezzo. It was painting after 1452.
2 and 3. Frescos in Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara. They were probably painted by Francesco Cossa in the 1470s.
4. A detail from one of the Histories of St. Ursula by Vittore Carpaccio. This Venetian painting is signed and dated 1495 by the author.

I think that the quality of the engravings and these works of art would point to a date in the second half of the XV century.

Marco

A few more examples from the Malermi Bible, Venice 1490:

In the first the King and the guy on the left facing the couple getting married have slashed sleeves -

(The patterning of the musicians stage too has some semblance to that of the magicians table and the garden stool in the lovers).

The second, an author at his desk -

 

[euripides]

I'm seeing a parallel with Aquarius, the water-bearer.

 

[Niclas]

The Sun
(...)Where the card is wildly different is the representation under the sun. The TdM style decks show two figures with a wall behind them. Here it seems that only one figure is presented.

Andy Pollet has a wonderful page about the Cary Sheet on his site showing a possible reconstruction of what the card may have originally looked like:
http://it.geocities.com/a_pollett/cards69.htm

It seems probably that the figure is holding a banner, as is similarly shown in the Jacques Vieville Tarot(...)

Geocities, of course, is no more - is Andy Pollet's reconstruction gone forever? I remember it, and I remember being very impressed by it, but alas, I did not download the picture...